


Bit the Bullet (And Swallowed it, Too)

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Betrayal, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Het Relationship, F/F, F/M, Kidnapping, Kill Bill AU, Past Violence, Pregnancy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 17:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17288315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: It’s a sunny, beautiful day in Aurora, Nevada the day Marie Mjolnir, 8 months pregnant and glowing, becomes Marie Stein. At least, it would be, if the little chapel in the middle of nowhere didn’t get shot up by the assassination group she was once a part of. Waking up from a coma 4 years later, Marie, labeled a Jane Doe, finds herself suddenly childless, husbandless, and determined to do just what she did when she was a gun for hire:She wasn’t going to get upset. She was going to get even.Kill Bill inspired AU. But without the racism and misogyny.





	1. A Shotgun Wedding (And a Stain on my Shirt)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, hey, I'm not dead! Here: have this as apology for my super long hiatus?

_“Don't you know that no one alive can always be an angel? When things go wrong I seem to be bad._

_I'm just a soul whose intentions are good--_

_Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.”_ _  
_ _~Santa Esmeralda_

 

_._   
_._ _  
_.

 

_Aurora, Nevada_

 

She readjusted the veil atop her head, desperate to go outside and catch some of the breeze. The air in the chapel, a little place in the middle of a nowhere she could maybe start a life worth living, was stifling, and her small, capable hands came to rest atop her belly. She inhaled in the thick dust, slow, through her nose, staring at that door.

 

Azusa wasn’t there, yet. And neither was Nygus. Or Kami. Or Medusa. And they were the only real family that she’d had, so her side of the chapel felt awful lonely with the ceremony was about to start. It wasn’t as though it was a formal wedding, anyway: just some papers, a priest, and the old woman who owned the place. But she’d wanted at least someone to be there save for the people being paid. Stein had always been a loner, ever since she met him, but she thought she’d at least have someone to call her own sitting beside her for the shotgun wedding.

 

“Marie,” Stein said, carefully walking up to her, likely tempted to place a hand on her shoulder. She knew what he was saying. Quietly, she readjusted her skirt, running her hand up and down the fabric. She could certainly afford a better dress, but she wanted to leave that life behind. The money was good, but the rest of it?

 

There was no room for her baby in a life like that.

 

So, she smiled, and turned to look at Stein. “Sorry, I just. . .I swore they’d be here.”

 

Stein nodded, ever understanding of even the unsaid. “We’re not marrying them,” he responded, and she giggled, nodding back.

 

At the front of the chapel, the elderly woman in charge cleared her throat, looking to the world as though she’d rather be anywhere but there. “Darlin’,” she warbled out, her cake foundation looking particularly shiny in the heat. The dust was everywhere, sand kicking up from the very floorboards.

 

Marie looked over at Stein and allowed one of her hands to come away from her belly, a means of protection she unknotted to so few.

 

“Ready?” she asked, and Stein nodded, simply. It was always the ease of him that she found most comforting, the simple solutions. In comparison, she felt almost sloppy. Emotions were few and far between in most people who shared her profession, and she certainly knew how to shut off that valve. But, since this was a new beginning, she saw no shame in wanting her closest friends there with her when they were all about to start a life finally worth living.

 

She turned her gaze to the open door, barely filtering in enough air into the chapel to justify the grit smothering every crevice of the floorboards, and held eye contact for only a few moments, hoping against hope the last few seconds would see Nygus and Azusa and Kami and Medusa coming through, laughing about how their crappy engine stalled out but they wouldn’t miss it, this, _her_ , for the world.

 

Marie takes in a single breath, letting it fill her lungs, before she feels Stein’s hand settle, briefly, atop her own on her belly. Finally breaking her gaze, she looks back at him, her husband (well, almost), the father of her baby.

 

“You?” he asks, only, and she smiles, sweet as a cup of coffee without enough sugar, and nods.

 

As she walks to the altar, carefully waddling in her plain, flat shoes, she is tempted to look behind her, if just to give one last, brief glimpse of hope. Stein squeezes her hand and she lets her smile soften.

 

“Hey,” Marie begins, setting her spare hand atop his so that, now, there were three hands resting on her stomach, “I want you to know that I love-”  


**_BANG_ **

 

The floor slipped out from under her- and the dust- god, the- the dust-

 

the sand-

 

sand, sand, everywhere:

in her mouth, her mouth, her teeth felt loose, her head

 

rattling. Marie groaned, lights- flashing before her eyes. The moan of pain was instantaneous, her belly bottoming out. Around her, the bang of a shotgun, something she knew so damn intimately, was deafening. When she managed to open her eyes, she caught the flash of light coming off of what she could only assume was a gun- Azusa? Azusa? But how? No one was there- who had- where?

 

There was a sharp kick to her back and she screamed. Her hands scrabbled for purchase against the floorboards, but there was nothing. Dust and sand and no more. She coughed wetly. Stein? And her baby? Her _baby._

 

Marie opened her mouth to- she didn’t know. Beg? Plead?

 

Her past was catching up to her, she thought, her final cruelty unto herself. She had no right- no right at all- what was she doing? Guns for hire didn’t get happy endings. The people she’d killed flashed before her mind, a film on replay. Had she forgotten someone? Had someone come to make her feel that which she has bestowed upon others?

 

Her body was sore and she felt a sharp sting in her lower body, a wetness surging down, down- her baby. Her **baby.**

 

**_“_ **S-stop-“ she whispered, but she was hoarse and nothing within her would allow her to move. “Stop-“

 

When she opened her eyes, she saw Stein, bloody, and getting dragged to- she didn’t know. Somewhere. Somewhere was up. Somewhere was down. But she didn’t know where. Her eyes closed once more, trying to keep her head from going as dizzy as it was. Marie didn’t know what was happening. She didn’t know- she didn’t- and _who-_

 

“You know,” a cold voice called out before she was kicked once more and she found herself gasping, on her back, her hands going for her belly- but she knew- she fucking _knew_ that voice, “I can’t believe you were going to start without me.”

 

Marie’s eyes snapped open and her gasp was painful, her panting heavy. Above her, Medusa smiled around her lit cigarette, blonde hair curled immaculately, green dress embroidered with a beautiful snake right where the slit ended above her thigh, the holster of her gun barely showing.

 

“M-Med-“

 

“Good thing it all got canceled, hm?”

 

Marie groaned painfully, the reality of the situation still not catching up to her. The Viper, ever deadly, had always been nothing but a friend.

 

“Medusa- hosp-“ she coughed, again. “Hospital,” she wheezed. Something in her was broken. Rattling wetly.

 

She heard the gun cock. “A hospital?” she said, softly. “Why, here? I do think it would be too far a walk for you in your state. Or perhaps a crawl?”

 

Marie’s brows furrowed, and she managed to get her eyes in focus enough to see that Medusa was casually aiming the gun at- at _her._ With a clarity she didn’t think she could have mustered up, she managed to catch silhouettes of women- three of them- in the background, all shooting or throwing knives, scouring the area for survivors. The names all flashed in her head, all of them dressed in black with their masks on. Fer-De-Lance, Diamondback, Sidewinder. Medusa, the Viper, of course.

 

And her. Copperhead. But those weren’t names they were using, anymore. They’d agreed. They’d _agreed._ But here she was, laying in the dirt, and the people she thought were friends- her family- here they were, at her wedding as promised, drawing blood as surely as their codenames implied.

 

Medusa casually stepped around her. Somehow, Marie realized, she’d fallen against the altar where all the papers were. Of course, this was the one and only time she’d actually put her real name on any document. She thought it to be a symbol of good will, a sign of a clean and beautiful future. Medusa smiled thinly as she lifted the papers up with her free hand, the other still squarely pointing the gun at Marie, and began to flip through all the documents. Behind her, Marie could barely make out the priest, laying dead as the god he believed in.

 

“Mmmm,” Marie managed to get out, still trying to say her friend’s(?) name. But her throat felt dead, sick, and she wanted to simply clutch her stomach, protect her baby, rewind it all back to the day she found out she was pregnant in a hotel room on an assignment to kill some politician in Denmark.

 

“You know what’s funny?” Medusa said, likely realizing Marie could barely speak, let alone do much else. Slowly, she placed the gun down onto the altar  and pulled out a cigarette, waving the papers around as she spoke. “The first day you decide to be yourself is also the last.”

 

With that, Marie watched the woman use the cherry of her cigarette to light the papers, letting them drop to the ground before she snatched up the gun once more. Marie could barely breathe, the air so thick, full of hatred. Something in her was clotting, a knot of fury, and if she had anything near her, anything at all, she would have destroyed her, would have smashed her to dust without a warning at all.

 

But there was nothing. And Medusa smiled, sweet, sharp; clean as a cut from throat to belly.

 

Marie opened her mouth once more, to curse, to scream, to fight.

  
**_Bang. Bang._ **(my baby shot me down)


	2. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

_Beep. Beep._

 

The sand- sand- her baby- Medusa- Medusa- **Medusa- her baby-** **_her_ ** **_baby_ **

 

Marie awoke with a shriek, hands thrown out as though to defend herself, but as she heaved, her chest bobbing up and down harshly, she looked around and found-

 

White. Linen. Machines. And a room full of what she would assume were corpses if it weren’t for the fact that everyone was hooked up to machines. Her brows furrowed- a dream? She’d had horrible pregnancy dreams recently, especially as she approached her due. . .date.

 

The icy horror in her bones chilled her the way she never thought anything else would, and slowly, not wanting to believe it, not wanting to _know_ , she fluttered her palms down to her stomach, which was-

 

flat. Flat flat flat as the desert when you looked out to the horizon.

 

And the sob that came from her was so instant, so primal, she could hardly believe it came from her. A wail, the kind of keening that she had heard only banshees in mythos made, was what left her throat as she hunched in on herself, mourning more than she ever thought possible. Surely, surely, it couldn’t be. Surely this was- a joke- a dream- some kind of twisted, horrible, nausea that she would wake from. Surely she’d given birth, and her baby and her husband were waiting for her outside, because this was a hospital, and she was- she was-

 

She was empty. She was heaving. And for what felt like the first time in her life since she was 8 years old, she was _scared._

 

“Did you hear that?” a woman’s voice rung out and Marie gasped, immediately laying back down, trying to still herself enough to be convincing after wiping her tears away just as the door opened.

 

“Lupe, you’re going crazy. Ain’t nothing in here but people in comas.”

 

“I swear I heard someone screaming, Jackie.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, and I’m gonna win the lottery.”

 

“Hey, if you never believe me-”

 

“I do believe you, honey-”

 

“Nah, you never-”

 

  
“Lupe, look around. No one is awake.”

 

There was a beat, and for a second, Marie was certain that she’d been found out.

 

“Okay, yeah. Maybe- Maybe I heard something-”

 

“What’s this? Lupe ‘Always Right’ Alvarez finally admitting she’s wrong?”

 

“I’m the best damn nurse in this place, Jackie- I’m _never_ wrong.”

 

There was a giggle from the two women, followed simply by the door closing, and Marie finally breathed a single sigh of relief before she opened her eyes. But something didn’t seem right. The left side. . .all dark. Slowly, just as she did with her stomach, she brought her palm up to her head and felt at where she had always known her left eye to be. Pausing briefly, she closed her right eye-

 

Nothing. Her hand, the lights, the hospital room: all of it obliterated as her right eye closed. She felt at her face, feeling at fabric, and swallowed, hard, opening her eye again.

 

So, that, too, had been lost.

 

Somewhere in her, she knew a normal woman would be inconsolable. And something within her throbbed in pain, wretched and burning and livid and aflame.

 

But Marie had been an assassin. And before that, a soldier. And before even that, one tough little girl.

 

Her brain slipped past the pain, compartmentalizing, placing it within a box inside of her that she was sure would burst, eventually. But she knew the facts, the pragmatism of it all a comforting anchor. Here she was, in a hospital. She had to check the date, find clothes, get the hell out of there, then-

 

Then-

 

Her mind kept flashing to the barrel of a gun pointed at her in a tiny chapel. To Medusa’s smirking face. To Stein’s bloody, beaten body. To her wedding day. To her baby, her baby, her **baby-**

 

Check the date. Find clothes. Get the hell out of there.

 

Slowly, Marie hunched forward, reaching for what she was certain was a clipboard at the front of her bed. Even that motion felt exhausting to her muscles, which hadn’t been used in-

 

That. . .that couldn’t be right.

 

In-

 

In four years. Almost, at least. Marie scanned and rescanned the page, double checking the date. Everything threatened to bubble out of her: the questions

 

 _Does Medusa know? Who has been paying for this? Why didn’t they pull the plug? Four years? Four_ **_years?_ **

 

Okay. Find clothes. Get the hell out of there.

 

Find clothes.

 

Get the hell out of there.

 

She could do this. She could _do_ this. She had done worse and harder and more impossible tasks before. Marie fisted the blanket and went to get out of the bed.

 

And promptly collapsed on the floor when her legs couldn’t support her.

 

Well.

 

Shit.

 

She panted as she flopped onto her back, the strain near impossible to tolerate. She stared at her feet, the toes unmoving, and a single shiver of fear ran through her. What if she couldn’t walk? What if she had no feeling below her waist? Without hesitation, she slapped at her thigh, and the light sting reassured her, the anxiety replaced instantly with determination.

 

Come on. Come _on._ Her singular eye focused on her big toe, the skin pale where she once was tan, urging her body simply to move, to _twitch_ , even.

 

Almost.

 

Almost.

 

Damnit, she could _do_ this. She was a woman who had been stranded in Thailand with a broken leg and seventeen stitches and still got home to her boyfriend. She was a woman who had been in New Zealand and narrowly escaped with her arm and her wits. She was a woman who had worked her way out of a coffin in the frozen tundra of Siberia with nothing but a rubber band, a high heeled shoe, and her fists.

 

Brows furrowed, she grimaced, hard, as she pushed and strained every available ounce of strength into the task until-

 

 **Yes.**

* * *

  
  
Marie spat into the sand, the alarm of the hospital blaring behind her as she made her way out to the street to find a car she could hotwire. Here in Nevada, where there was nothing but dunes and flatland for miles on end, blood could soak in as if the Earth was a sponge, and there would be no one the wiser to it. Would anyone mourn her if it was here that she met her last goodbye? Once upon a time, when she was rounded out and warm, she knew Frank would. But he was gone. And so was her baby. And so was her future.

 

She was a Jane Doe in that hospital. Once, she was Copperhead. Once, she was Marie Mjolnir. The last day she remembered, she was to be Marie Stein.   
  
Out, barely two blocks away was a nice, yellow car, perfect for escaping in, small, unassuming. She made her way forward, urging her tired, broken body to obey.

 

She was no one, now, she knew. Step. Step. Forward. Forward. A husbandless bride. One block out. A childless mother. Almost there. Just a little farther. Her feet burned in the thin hospital booties she had managed to snag.

 

Marie kept walking until her shaking fingers found the car handle.

 

Here comes the bride.


	3. Flower of Carnage

_ Six months, too many newspaper clippings, and a single instance of food poisoning in a run down motel later _

 

Azusa’s door was nothing like she thought it would be. And it was a shot in the dark that this was where the woman was, but Marie knocked, anyway. The dark blue of the door reminded her of just how pale she was, and she wistfully remembered the beautiful tan she had developed, gorgeous and golden, right before her wedding. She was prepared for the worst, though. As of that moment, no one had come for her, and she was still alive, despite the metal in her skull, and in her chest, and her empty empty empty belly, so she had the element of surprise, knocking once more. 

 

Marie’s teeth grit down as she heard rummaging right before the door opened, but to her surprise, instead of Azusa... 

 

“Sidewinder,” Marie said, her voice thin, as though stretched taut upon the rack. The woman before her inhaled sharply, eyes widening. 

 

“It’s Mira, now,” she said, like it was  a reflex. Marie almost laughed, bitter. With slightly more caution, she continued. “And before you mention Diamondback, she’s Yumi.”

 

“It must be nice to have lives where you get such pretty names.”

 

Before her, Mira- once known to everyone only as Nygus or the Sidewinder, deadlier than venom itself when she had a knife in her hands- seemed to decompress, as though she had already struck.

 

“Christ, Marie-“

 

“Jane Doe, now, actually,” she said, so angry she could spit. But something in her fizzled when she saw the barest of wetness in Nygus’ eyes, an electric blue so bright it could knock a person  dead. Perhaps she knew that Marie had come to collect for the sins of the past.

 

“We thought you were dead,” she whispered, voice suddenly hoarse, and if Marie was less observant, she wouldn’t have noticed how Nygus clutched at the doorframe, her shoulders shuddering.

 

Marie bristled, every bit a cobra, every bit a woman scorned. “Because you  _ tried to kill me _ ,” she spat, poison, fury, and her hand came to the door, forcing it open even farther, much to Nygus’ surprise as she stepped back, her mouth opening to shout out a startled “What?”.

 

Marie had to give it to Nygus, the woman was just as fast as she had been four years ago, because the knife that Marie had in her hands would have slashed anyone else. Instead, Nygus ducked her head back just enough that it missed her.

 

“Are you fucking crazy!?” she shrieked, and Marie merely got into a defensive pose, something in her chest burning and sad, bringing the knife as close to her as she could. 

 

Her weapon of choice had always been a hammer, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she needed answers, and she needed to make them  _ pay, _ and she just-

 

Nygus’ hand came out to grasp her wrist faster than she could have anticipated, and she was still slow from her stay in the hospital. Her muscles screamed, atrophied to a ghost of what she once was, and Nygus was healthy, well rounded, able and willing to fight, despite living in the relative comfort of suburbia.

 

Marie didn’t even stand a chance, but she’d never gone quietly. So, she screamed, and she grabbed Nygus back, and she went to grasp the woman’s dreadlocks, but Nygus twisted her wrist harder harder harder, and the knife fell out of her hands.

 

She didn’t even realize she was being flipped until her hands were suddenly behind her and her cheek was to the floor, Nygus’ knee pressed hard into her back. 

 

“Fuck- stay down, Marie- stop it, just- fuck, stop it-“

 

“Let me go! Let me  _ go!  _ Fuck you, Nygus-“

 

“Will you stay still for a second you goddamn  _ lunatic-“ _

 

“Go fuck yourself-“

 

“Marie-“

 

“What,” a sharp, dry voice suddenly cut through, punctuated with the cocking of a gun, “the fuck is happening in my living room?”

 

Both women turned to look at the opening where the room connected to the kitchen, but Nygus was the first person to react.

 

“Yumi, baby, go back in the kitchen, I’ve got this-“

 

“You mean  _ we’ve  _ got this,” Azusa said, and Marie, only then, caught the glint of the matching wedding rings, the framed pictures of wedding photos on the walls and the tables, the images of two blonde girls held in their arms-

 

And then, in her stupor,  the clink of cuffs coming around her wrists.

* * *

 

Nygus was on her third cigarette in the kitchen by the time she finally opened her mouth. “We thought you were dead,” she said, hollowly, the smoke pluming out of her mouth and towards the direction of the slightly cracked window. “That’s what- it’s what Medusa told us. The chapel- it was a bloodbath. We just figured. . .fuck, Marie, we figured someone from our past got a whiff of you. But by the time we found out about it, you were a Jane Doe and everywhere we looked, you just got buried somewhere. They all said it was a- was a cold case. Wasn’t worth it if you were some nobody out in the flatlands and no one laid claim to you.”

 

Marie chewed on it all for a while, twisting her hands in the cuffs. Her single eye almost watered at the sting to her already bruised and bloody wrists, but she sucked in a breath and simply looked at Nygus. “So you just, what? Moved on?”

 

“Damnit, Marie, what were we supposed to do? There were so many damn dead ends that we exhausted! We had to-”

 

“We had to start our lives,” Azusa finished, looking mildly ashamed but also entirely steely, every bit as rigid and inflexible as her weapon of choice.

 

Marie looked down at the table, at the chipped wood and a crude carving of a stick figure family, four people, all in skirts.

 

“You can’t blame us for- for letting it go,” Nygus said, but it sounded almost like a plea. 

 

“So you started a family.”

 

“It was- Yumi and I had been-”

 

“We’d been involved-”

 

“In love-” 

 

“Before the wedding. I was going to propose when we got there,” Azusa said, and Marie could see that her former friend wanted nothing more than to hold her wife’s hand. Nygus shook her head, reaching for the ashtray to put out her cigarette.

 

“But you didn’t get there,” Marie said.

 

“Something. . .something fucked with our car,” Nygus said. “And then we got a message from you, that you’d moved the wedding back a few hours. Wanted it at night.”

 

“We should have known it was a. . .a lie,” Azusa said, sighing.

 

“When we got there, there was so much blood. . .and you were gone. But I didn’t believe you were dead. I promised we wouldn’t get married until we found out what happened to you. But after a year. . .”

 

“We found our girls,” Azusa filled in, and Nygus nodded, the slightest hint of a smile, warm and kind, playing on her face.

 

“Liz. And Patti.”

 

“Elizabeth and Patricia-”

 

“Liz,” Nygus said somewhat more forcefully, but with a smudge of humor, “And Patti. And we. . .we had to give them a home. And parents. And. . .it’s what you would have done.”

 

Marie swallowed, thickly, looking between the two of them. “. . .just- just tell me one thing,”she began, waiting for both of them to refocus on her. “Why should I believe you weren’t a part of it?”

 

Nygus and Azusa looked at one another at that, and Nygus nodded, slowly, though Azusa clearly looked worried. “Because,” Nygus started, finally catching Marie’s eye, “I have a parting gift from Medusa, too.”

 

“Yeah?” Marie asked, watching as Nygus slowly started rolling up the cuff of her pants. Marie’s eyebrows went up when she saw the prosthetic and, right above it, Medusa’s mark, the snake, burned into Nygus’ skin, pink and shining, right above the knee. 

 

“Yeah. Said I was snooping too much. Put my nose where it didn’t belong. And I have kids, you know. And ‘Zusa. So I- I let it go.  _ We  _ let it go.”

 

Marie looked at her two friends, the women she would have and had taken bullets for, and she felt the ice she’d been filled with at the hospital replaced with a burning not too unlike a needling at her skin from within.

 

“Where do I find her?”

 

“We don’t know,” Nygus informed her. “Medusa went off the grid. Completely disappeared after that. I hear her name sometimes, but. . .dead ends, you know?”

 

“We both know someone who can find anyone if he wanted to-”

 

“Hold it. Even if you found the Viper, what exactly do you plan on doing?” Azusa asked and Marie turned her gaze to her, her only remaining eye glinting cleanly, sharp as a blade, and just as honest.

 

“I’m gonna tear her to pieces.”

 

Azusa looked her up and down before a smile finally graced her lips. “Well, not in the shape you’re in.”

 

Nygus blinked near owlishly at her wife. “Yumi?”

 

“Ny, remember how Mrs. Ramirez asked if Patti and Liz could go to that overnight camp with her daughter?”

 

“That camp you said you would sooner die than let our, quote, baby girls sent from Buddha himself waltz into?”

 

“Yes. Could you give her a call and let her know we’d love to send the girls?”

 

“. . .Yumi?”

 

Azusa turned over to Marie, lifting up the keys to the handcuffs with a finger. “I think it’s long time that snake bitch gets what she deserves, don’t you?”


	4. Such a Lovely Place (Such a Lovely Face)

_ Five Months, Countless Bruises, and Too Many Hello Kitty Bandaids Later _

 

The gravel crunched satisfyingly over the unfinished parking lot in front of The Pumpkin Patch, and Marie stretched her fingers in the front seat. As many times as those bones had been broken and healed in the past, they still got stiff from holding a steering wheel for too long, even though those same hands could break through a wood door with nothing but some split skin. 

 

Marie smoothed her hair down, the flyways stuck to her lip gloss coming away chunky and sticky, and she made a face as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair had grown in the time she was away, and she almost wished she took up Azusa’s offer of a cut before she went off. But the man she was hunting for had a taste for pretty, conventionally feminine women. And, well, if she went as far as to get a shockingly convincing prosthetic, she wasn’t going to risk success over a pixie cut, no matter how badly she wanted one. 

 

So, she merely stepped out of the vehicle, a large, red truck, and adjusted her miniskirt once she got down onto the ground. It was only 3 in the afternoon, but she knew he’d be there. Marie self-consciously pressed her palms over her flat stomach and felt a twinge within her, but swallowed it down. Soon, she promised. Damn soon. But first, a visit to an old friend. 

* * *

 

“Hey, Blair!” he slurred, lifting his glass into the air good naturedly. “Could you get me another, darlin’?”

 

Blair rolled her eyes teasingly, smiling in the way that only she could: just sharp enough to warn others not to mess with her, but soft and inviting enough to entice the kind of hefty tips that had kept The Pumpkin Patch alive in what was otherwise a dry and boring town.

 

“Mmm, sugar, I think you’re close to tappin’ out over there,” she giggled, and her black hair, glinting purple and sweet in the lights, seemed to glisten like water as she turned around to dry off a whiskey glass. “I might have to cut you off.”

 

Spirit laughed from his seat, leaning his elbows onto the scuffed wood of the bar. “But I’m your favorite customer,” he said, attempting sultry, surely, but too tipsy to truly pull it off.

 

“Hun, if you haven’t noticed,” Blair began, filling the glass with two fingers of drink and lifting her brows as she turned to face him, “you’re currently my  _ only  _ customer.”

 

“All the better to keep me on tap.”

 

“Spencer Albarn-”

 

“Oh, don’t be that way, Blair Witch-”

 

“Keep this up and you’ll truly be a Spirit like your nickname suggests.”

 

“Well, if I’m dyin’ around a woman as pretty as you, I’d call that a death worth having.”

 

Blair laughed, open and throaty, the kind of laugh that couldn’t have possibly come from a girl raised in a no-nonsense town like the dust bowl she was currently holed up in. No, that was the kind of laugh that came from big cities like the one Blair was really from; being a pretty lady who only humored men with giggles and let loose when with people who truly understood her. And Spirit, haunting her bar, as odd and strange and full of whiskey as he was, understood. 

 

“You’re a charmer ‘til the end. Okay, kitten, have another drink. But I’ll cut you off after this one, pinky promise.”

 

“You’re an angel, Blair,” he said, smiling as she set the drink down in front of him. That smile got hidden only when he lifted up the glass to take a drink. It wasn’t really a sipping whiskey, hell, nothing that cheap could ever be anything but a swift shot to slick his throat, but he was already buzzed, despite his protests, and he wanted to keep himself at least a bit sharp if anything called trouble knocked on the door.

 

Which, speaking of, just opened. 

 

“What was that about being my only customer, Spirit?” Blair teased, smiling triumphantly at the woman who had just walked in. “Hello, ma’am, anything I can get you?”

 

Spirit turned in his seat, always interested in seeing what kind of dame would roll up to Blair’s establishment, what with the reputation the woman had. Break one man’s jaw who just so happened to have a wife, and suddenly all the women in the town were screaming about her being a temptress sent to murder their precious men. 

 

Spirit whistled when he set eyes on the woman, though, barely able to help himself. Blair glared at him, hard, slapping her dish towel down in front of him in a not so subtle warning. 

 

“Ignore him,” Blair began, “he’s had too much to-”

 

“Oh, no, no,” the woman said, smiling soft and gentle, looking radiant in her purple miniskirt and creamy tank top. “I take it as a. . .compliment,” she finished, looking Spirit in the eye, and he straightened up immediately, taking in her lovely brown eyes and shapely legs. He gave her a look that he hoped was more confident than he felt.

 

“Well, I’m sure you get it often enough, Ma’am. You’re certainly a sight.”

 

“Am I? Surely you must get countless pretty women coming by your way, sir,” she said, almost too polite. Blair looked from one to the other, slowly, feeling something wrong tingling in her skull. 

 

“Ma’am, can I get you anything?” she asked, again, this time almost forcefully. The woman looked over at her, finally settling her eyes away from Spirit, as though she were a sniper who had set her sights on her target. Blair almost shivered.

 

“I’ll start with a water,” she said, and Blair almost cursed. Something in her just wanted an excuse to check the woman’s ID, see who she was. She’d never seen her before, and the dusty town wasn’t exactly known for attracting newcomers or tourists. 

 

“Coming right up,” Blair said, simply, planting on a smile but keeping one eye on the two of them as the mystery woman went and hopped up on a barstool, most likely crossing her legs and rucking up her skirt to reveal more of her thighs.

 

Spirit turned to her flirtatiously, leaning against the wood of the bar. “So, where are you from?”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to say I must be from heaven?” she asked, instead of answering, and Spirit laughed while Blair set the glass of water down in front of her. 

 

“Well, you know all the lines, don’t you?”

 

“I’ve heard ‘em once. Or twice,” she admitted, and Spirit seemed to like her all the more for it. Damn him, he’d always had a thing for no nonsense gals.

 

But all Blair could focus on was the fact that she was avoiding any personal details. And she was starting to remember why she had a pretty little pistol hidden up under her bar. 

 

“Well, I’m sure,” Spirit said, still smiling. “So, I guess if I ask if you come here often, you won’t answer that either?”

 

“Oh, I’m just swinging through.”

 

“Yeah? Out visiting your. . .uh, boyfriend?”

 

The woman smiled thinly. “No. Coming to see an old friend. But I’m afraid he’s forgotten me.”

 

“You? Naw, a pretty face like yours? No one could forget.”

 

“No one?”

 

“Mmmm,” Spirit hummed, sipping at his drink once more, keeping his eyes on the woman. “Though, if you need a place to, well, swing through, my apartment’s not too far from here.”

 

“That so? Well, sir, I don’t even know your name.”

 

“Name’s Spencer. But you can call me Spirit.”

 

“Spirit,” she said, and Blair instantly felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, the tension in the bar harsh and boiling. 

 

Spirit seemed none the wiser, though, just continuing to smile. “That’s right. And what about you?”

 

“Oh, I go by a lot of names,” she dismissed.

 

“Yeah? Just give me one of them, then? Maybe in exchange for a drink?”

 

“Oh, no drink necessary.”

 

“Then what should I call you. Beautiful?”

 

The woman batted her eyelashes, reaching her hand out, seemingly to finish off his drink. “You can call me Copperhead.”

 

“What?” Spirit asked, completely clueless for what seemed like only a millisecond before his eyes widened. But by then it was too late. The woman grabbed his wrist, twisting it behind him just as she shoved her knee into his back, winding him. Blair whipped her hands over towards her pistol, but Marie had already grabbed the gun she’d kept hidden in her boot, cocking the trigger and staring the woman down. 

 

Blair slowly lifted both hands in the air, one holding the gun loosely.

 

“Take the bullets out,” Marie ordered, and the sickly sweet voice she’d had before was suddenly steely, cold.

 

Blair hesitated and Marie pressed her gun to the back of Spirit’s head, still doubled over. 

 

“Now.”

 

Blair nodded quickly, quickly taking the ammo out, her hands shaking. “Please-” she started, but Marie only pressed the gun harder against his head. 

 

“Throw that sorry excuse for a pistol over the bar.” Blair felt the bile rise up in her throat, but she did as was asked of her, ready to plead, but the woman turned her attention away as soon as Blair’s gun clattered away. 

 

“Hey, Spirit,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here. Thought you never forgot a pretty face.”

 

“Fuck- Marie-”

 

“You already offered. Not interested,” she said, simply, before yanking him upright, still holding onto his wrist, which looked red and irritated in her grasp.

 

“I thought you were-”

 

“Dead. Yeah, I figured. You know, I was thinking about it and I realized there’s no one alive who could fuck with Diamondback and Sidewinder’s car. No one. Except you.”

 

“I-”

 

“And,” she continued, “sending them that message? Sneaky.”

 

Blair watched as the blood drained out of Spirit’s face, and he looked afraid for a moment. Two. And then- resigned.

 

“Yeah. . .yeah, you caught me.”

 

“What did Medusa offer you? Huh? Must’ve been a lot. You know, to make it so she could kill a pregnant woman.”

 

“No! No- it-”

 

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know, Albarn. You know everything.”

 

He sucked in a breath. “Yeah, I. . .I knew. And if you want to kill me. . .if you are going to kill me. . .I understand.”

 

“You don’t get off that easy,” Marie hissed, twisting his wrist harder, and Blair almost opened her mouth to yell. “Only reason you’re not dead right now is because I need your damn help.”

 

“My- what?”

 

Marie dug her nails into his skin before she shoved him away from her, letting him hit up against the bar stools, stumbling. “Your  _ help _ , Albarn. I think you owe me that much.”

 

Spirit finally turned to look at her, ignoring Blair’s hands on his shoulders. His mouth opened and closed a few times. ‘I didn’t want you to die’ and ‘You don’t understand’ were on his lips, but instead, he looked over the woman he had condemned to death with his hacking and his meddling. And even if he didn’t raise a gun to her, a hand to her, he felt the guilt churn in him, sad and thick. 

 

He remembered Marie. Had only met her once or twice. Remembered how radiant she was when she told him she would no longer be in need of his services. She was getting married, you see. Pregnant.

 

He felt sick, his past finally back to haunt him.

 

Blair’s hands soothed and worried over his shoulders, but he didn’t take his eyes off of Marie, Copperhead, her gun down but her stance deadly. 

 

He owed her so much more than just help. 

 

So he nodded, and, finally, opened his mouth to actually say something. 

 

“. . .yeah,” he said, quietly. “Yeah.”


	5. Twisted Nerve

He won’t lie and pretend that he hadn’t thought of having a woman as pretty as Copperhead in his apartment. He won’t even lie and say he didn’t dream of her tying him to a chair. 

 

He just-

 

didn’t think it would be for an interrogation. 

 

“Look, I’ve complied with everything you’ve asked for- do you really need to tie me up?”

 

“I don’t know what kind of weapons you have hidden in your apartment,” she answered simply, and Spirit almost huffed in frustration. 

 

“I’m a hacker! Not a killer. I wouldn’t be able to fight you even if I wanted to.”

 

“Do you want to?” she asked, easily, and Spirit floundered for a moment. 

 

“I- what? No-”

 

“Then why help Medusa?”

 

Spirit was silent as he looked at her, holding her gaze for a beat, two, before he looked away.

 

“I thought you just needed my help.”

 

“Information  _ is  _ help. You of all people should know that.”

 

Spirit nodded, dejected. “You want. . .the truth.”

 

“As much of it as you have,” Marie said, sitting down on his kitchen table as he worried his hands in the ties. “And then I need you to find that bitch that you helped to murder me.”

 

“I didn’t help Medusa,” he started, and Marie’s hand immediately went to her gun, her expression closing. He stumbled over his next words in the effort to get them out fast enough. “I mean- I did! But I didn’t do it for her!”

 

Her hand slowed and she looked at him, unimpressed. “Keep talking.”

 

“I. . .look, I did it for. . .for Kami.”

 

“Fer-de-Lance? What she do? Strong arm you?”

 

“No- I. . .” He took a deep breath. “Kami was pregnant.”

 

“. . .what?”

 

“And the baby- she- she was. . .she was  _ mine.” _

 

“Kamiko was pregnant?” Marie repeated, dazed.

 

“Not as far along as you were, but. . .yeah. And Medusa. . .she said it. . .she said it was either you, or her, and I thought. . .I thought your baby might make it because you were so far along.”

 

Marie’s lower lip trembled. “But my baby  _ didn’t  _ make it.”

 

Spirit lowered his gaze to the ground. “I know. . .I. ..I know. But I just hoped-”

 

“I don’t give a damn what you hoped,” Marie said, finally regaining the sharpness of her voice, borne of pain. “I don’t care.”

 

“I know. And you shouldn’t. It was. . .it was cowardly. I should have found a way for the both of you to. . .but it was  _ Medusa.  _ And Kami came to me and she said if I loved her. . .if I loved her, I would do this. If I loved our baby. . .”

 

“Kami knew?”

 

“Yeah. . .she and two other guns for hire went to back up Medusa.”

 

“. . .what happened next?”

 

“I was called in for. . .cleanup. Forge documents. Make it so you were some. . .nobody. . .who just died. A nobody’s  ID is better than none, you know.”

 

“And?”

 

“And. . .and you were. . .still alive.”

 

“You didn’t call anyone to finish the job?”

 

At this, Spirit finally looked at her. “I didn’t want you to die.”

 

Marie blinked, her brows coming together. “. . .what did you do?”

 

“I- forged the documents. Just like I said.”

 

She shook her head. “No. How did I end up in the hospital, Spirit? Who did you make me out to be that kept me there for four years?”

 

“. . .my last remaining family?”

 

The shock coursed through her body, an electric current she had only previously known to be negative. But the realization shook her. “You. . .you’re the reason. . .you’re why I’m alive?”

 

“. . .I was gonna be a  _ dad,  _ Copperhead. And I. . .I took that away from someone else. Took away their. . .your. . .future. But I thought. . .maybe you’d. . .maybe you’d wake up. . .start a new future.”

 

Marie’s eyes were sad, watery. “They didn’t tell you I went missing?”

 

He shook his head. “I just supplied the money. Enough for a good six years. After that. . .I don’t know. I thought I gave you enough time. Didn’t leave a number. Told them not to. . .not to contact me.”

 

“. . .you saved my life,” Marie said, softly, and the sound rang in the still apartment.

 

“No,” Spirit said, “I. . .was trying to make amends. But-,” he laughed bitterly, “it was. . .it didn’t even matter. I should have never. . .Kami left me, not long after that. Took the baby. . .took Maka. . .and then I found out she just. . .chucked her away. Left her in some. . .boarding school somewhere. I send things, but I. . .I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t get them. I don’t have contact.”

 

Marie nodded, thinking. “Where’s Kami?”

 

“. . .why?”

 

“Just gonna. . .pay her a visit. . .maybe force some answers. Get some revenge-”

 

“No! You can’t! I- I’ll find Medusa, I’ll do anything you ask but- not Kami-”

 

“She  _ killed  _ me, she left you, she threw away her daughter like garbage,” Marie urged.

 

“No! I- I don’t care. Not Kami!”

 

Marie’s eyes sharpened. “You and I both know that Kami would never change. If she and Medusa were in on this, she might still know where she is. And Kami is a hell of a lot less dangerous.”

 

“No,” Spirit said, again, so sure in his convictions that Marie was almost impressed. “I loved Kami. More than I ever loved anything before Maka came along. I won’t- I don’t care what she did to me. I won’t let you hurt her.”

 

Marie looked at him, feeling sick and steely and livid and sad. Something about him, his resolve, his adoration, perhaps, struck a nerve she had been trying to keep down. Frank. God, how she missed him. Every night since the hospital, when she would think of his hands on her, her hips, brushing her hair from her face, she’d feel her fingertips tingle electric- and shoved it all down. Love is what got her into this mess. It wasn’t what would get her out. 

 

She swallowed the thickening lump in her throat until it sunk, all through her stomach, down to her feet, where she wouldn’t have to think of it. 

 

“And if I promise not to hurt her?”

 

Spirit looked conflicted. “I- why do you-”

 

“Because,” Marie began, simply, “if Medusa trusted her, that means she’s my last chance of finding her.”

 

“But-”

 

“ _ And, _ ” Marie added, knowing just where to prod at him to get him to yield, “it might mean you could see Maka. If I plead your case.”

 

At that, and only that, Marie saw the clarity bloom on the man’s face. It was the kind of confidence and determination she had only seen on him when he was in front of a computer. 

 

His gaze met her own, strong. “Deal.”


	6. Round, And Around, And Around (And Around We Go)

One day, Marie swore to herself, she wouldn’t find herself flabbergasted at the suburbia of America. But she had thought Kami, at least, would have escaped it. Not that Marie could blame her: when all one knew was pain and blood, the premise of a yard was downright saintly. Besides, she thought bitterly, why not keep up pretenses in the summer, when her daughter no doubt would be home, soon.

 

Marie took a deep breath in, looking out at the swingset that had been set up beside a pretty, blooming tree. The grass seemed freshly cut, and if she was honest, if she’d passed a place like this during the old days, she would have laughed and seethed with envy.

 

Now, she was just cold. 

 

Spirit needed to break some serious laws to find this place. Apparently, he’d been keeping his hands off of Kami and his daughter for years, now, determined to be good. 

 

Goodness never did them any favors, though.

 

Marie rubbed her palms on her the thighs of her jeans, lifting herself on tip toes to stretch. Stalling. Always stalling. 

 

Besides Medusa, Kami was arguably the most dangerous person in the group. And, to top it off, they hadn’t really. . .gotten along the best. But they were still a good team, a good pair of assassins, women who knew how to slaughter.

 

They just had a different moral code. 

 

Marie shook it off. The past was an ache that wouldn’t leave, like a broken bone unset. It belonged behind her. Not too unlike dust. Or a wedding train.

 

She stepped forward, making her way past the gate, the flowers, and up the few meager steps to get to an elegantly painted white door with a brass handle and a doorbell. She ignored it, choosing instead to knock. From inside, she heard some rummaging and a voice starting to speak just before the door opened.

 

“Ms. Wendell? I told you already, I haven’t seen your garden shears-” Kami said, finally opening the door, a dish rag in her hands, her hair cut from her signature pigtails into a short bob, instead. Where there was once muscle, now she was all sinew and some softness. She was. . .pretty. Motherhood had done her well.

 

Really. It was like looking at what could have been.

 

And Marie  _ burned. _

 

“Hi,” she said, seething, glaring, and Kami’s eyebrows went up for only a moment before she went to hit her, but Marie shoved her back into the house, sweeping her knees out from under her so that Kami fell to the floor in a heavy thump. “Remember me?”

 

Kami lifted her head, blowing the hair out of her eyes. “Oh, I never forget a  _ bitch _ -” she said, kicking out and landing a heavy blow to Marie’s shin, forcing her to fall against the wall, only managing to catch her bearings fast enough to avoid what seemed like a very heavy, very pointy corner of a picture frame coming for her remaining eye. Marie all but snarled as she grasped her old partner’s wrist, twisting hard until the object came away from her grip in a sad clump on the carpet. 

 

“Yeah?” Marie hissed, twisting harder and shoving the other woman back, barely able to keep on her feet. “I’m sure. Considering this is a bitch back from the dead.”

 

“I told Medusa she should have shot you twice but she wanted that fucking-”

 

Marie kicked the other woman in the stomach, her knee connecting with what in the past would have been solid abdominal muscle, now a soft, slightly puffy belly. Kami, winded, fell back, but Marie urged her forward, as though dancing. “You thought you of all people could kill me?” she asked, elbowing the other woman, aiming for her throat but only managing to get her sternum. “You couldn’t even land a shot on the damn bullseye boards.”

 

“Go fuck yourself,” Kami managed to wheeze out. She hadn’t fought for so long, too slow, too spoiled by a new life without strife, that it took her several moments to finally pull away from the daze to realize she had her glass coffee table right there.

 

Kami used her free hand to grab Marie’s wrist and twisted them both onto the coffee table, landing Marie right onto the glass so it shattered while she narrowly managed to fall onto the carpet, freeing her from Marie’s grasp. 

 

Marie shrieked, the glass cutting into her, but she saw how Kami was crawling away to the kitchen and she saw red. The promise to Spirit fell away in a tatter and she clutched a long, curved piece of glass in her hand, knowing it was digging into the palm as she shifted to her knees. Everywhere there was glass, but she had dealt with worse. She had dealt with  _ everything. _

 

With a yell, Marie launched herself at the other woman, knocking both of them back onto the ground and rolling, hitting the side of the couch, hard. It was only because Marie had been training that she got the upper hand, straddling Kami as the woman looked up, suddenly terrified. Marie’s hand went up, up, poised to strike, the glass glinting like a snake’s tooth slicked with venom , and Kami’s hands came to her wrists to try to hold her off as Marie struck downward, the glass inches from the other woman’s face.

 

“You took everything from me!” Marie howled, feeling Kami struggling beneath her, glass shards falling into her hair, her dark, beautiful eyes scared for what felt like the first time in her life. “You took my husband, my baby, my life! And for what? For  _ what!?” _

 

Kami kept squirming, tears coming to the corners of her eyes as her arms faltered, the glass coming closer, closer, until-

 

“I did it for my baby! I did it for her- Marie! It was you or me, she would have killed Maka- she would have- Stop-  _ Marie-  _ She’ll be home soon!  _ Please! _ ”

 

Marie’s force ebbed for a moment, the forward momentum stalling as she thought of Maka coming in to see-

 

She looked down at Kami, scared, furious, begging. She would do anything to fight back, she knew. Just like-

 

Just like Marie.

 

Her lip quivered and she tightened her grip on the glass for a second before she finally relented, breaking from Kami’s hold and throwing the glass to the side, allowing the both of them to breathe. 

“You know,” Marie said, her own eye downturned, “my baby and yours could have been friends.”   
  
Kami panted, her arms falling to the sides, her beautiful living room in shambles. 

 

“You don’t know?” she managed to breathe out, Marie finally rolling off of her and onto the spot beside her, staring up at the ceiling, spent.

 

Marie made a single noise, a grunt, something of acknowledgement. “Know what?”

 

“They were.”

 

Her blood ran cold. “I. . .what? What?” She struggled to sit up, the glass digging in through her jeans. She twisted, looking at Kami, her eye wide and frantic.

 

Kami only looked up at her, defeated. “Your kid’s alive, Copperhead. They’re why Medusa killed you.”   
  
“Where. . .where is my baby?  _ Where?”  _ Marie demanded, suddenly rekindled. She could have walked all of Nevada if she damn well had to. 

 

Kami looked pained. “If I tell you, she’ll-”

 

“She won’t do  _ shit _ . If you think she can keep me from my-”

 

“Then you have to promise. Promise to kill her. Promise me!”

 

Marie looked Kami deep in the eyes. “I. Will. Destroy. Her.”

 

Kami searched Marie’s face for a long while before she finally nodded.   
  
“Henderson,” she said, looking to all the world like it was what she had wanted to say for years. “She’s in Henderson.”


	7. The Demise of Barbara (And the Return of Joe)

Once upon a time, there were two little girls named Marie Mjolnir and Melissa Gorgon, and they were princesses in plastic castles, giggling behind their hands in the foster home they had been lucky enough to land in, together. Life was hard, lonely. It was a fist in the stomach and a black eye, but they had each other. They had joy in their moments of playing house. 

 

_ “I wanna be the mommy!”  _ Melissa would always say, and Marie would always go along with it, because a friend in this world was the most important thing anyone could ever have. The only think she had. The only person. 

 

And it was like that even when they were fourteen, and Melissa had her first miscarriage when they ran away, there, under the bridge of 7th and Cherry, sweating and terrified, sick. Marie held her hand, sobbed the tears Melissa wouldn’t sob for herself.    
  
Because they were two little girls, Marie and Melissa, Melissa and Marie, always spoken of in the same breath. And a friend in this world was the most important thing.   
  
And it was like that even when they were 16, and getting into too much shady shit, learning that the fists they knew in foster care were useful, here, too. Like that even when they were 18, and learned how to snap a wrist like a twig, knew where to cut to find a femoral artery. Like that even when they were 20, and soldiers on a battlefield they had no business being on. Like that even when they were 23, and gave each other codenames that slithered down their throats like venom and poison, shields from the world that had been so cruel to them, before. And maybe Marie didn’t want to stop being Marie. Maybe she wanted to still be Marie, and be the mommy, for once, and clean the blood from her hands so it was sweet and sinless, again, and she wouldn’t be Copperhead. But Melissa told her that Marie could still be Marie. That one day, she would be Marie, again. And all those sins, all that cruelty, that was Copperhead, and Melissa would be Melissa and again, and the blood was Medusa, and she could shed it,  _ they  _ could shed it, like a snakeskin, together, and Marie said  _ yes _ . Yes, for her. 

 

Because a friend in this world was the most important thing. Until that friend killed her. Until she realized that Melissa, that girl who played in a plastic castle with her, died the day Medusa came bubbling from her skin.   
  
Marie had walked the desert believing she had shed all that once made her  _ her.  _ Had put Copperhead back on, a cloak, a costume, a fist in the throat.   
  
Her baby is alive.    
  
_ “I wanna be the mommy!” _ __  
__  
Marie looked up at the large, looming house in Henderson, registered to one Melissa Gorgon, a name she never thought she’d hear again, and she walks, finally armed with her sledgehammer from the old days, the only thing Kami had kept.

 

This time, she wasn’t going to knock, because it didn’t matter. The door was unlocked, as though to let in a ghost, and Marie felt like one as she silently slipped in, taking in the high glass windows and the beautiful living room. Ahead of her, there was a warm, amber light coming through the opening to the kitchen.

 

Like an invitation.

 

Marie didn’t know how Medusa knew, but something in her told her that she did. Undoubtedly. Because Medusa always knew about Marie. They were Melissa and Marie and Marie and Melissa. 

 

She always knew.

 

So when Marie slipped into the kitchen, Medusa barely glanced up at her.   
  
Medusa was smoking when Marie finally managed to find her, the sledgehammer dragging behind her as though an anchor beckoning her backward. Medusa only yawned, however, settling herself more calmly behind her kitchen table, chopping up what looked like carrots. The cigarette dangled in her mouth, ash coming down onto the cutting board.

 

“Copperhead,” she said, and Marie bristled, ready to vomit just from hearing the name from Medusa’s mouth. “Back from the dead. Maybe we should rename you Lazarus. Not that the miracle will last much longer.”

 

Marie didn’t expect the knife to go flying right at her, but she was lucky enough that it was little more than a dull kitchen knife. Certainly not Medusa’s cup of tea, usually, and Marie managed to dodge just in time, evading the poorly balanced blade. Medusa smiled, as though proud of her. That same smile she had when they were children, growing up, learning how to fight. 

 

“We all decided to get rid of those names,” Marie managed to say, keeping her sledgehammer down.

 

“Ah,” Medusa said, as though she actually understood. “But dead women don’t get names otherwise.”   
  
Marie swallowed the bile in her throat back into her stomach. “I’m not dead.”

 

“But you will be.”

 

Marie shook her head. “Only one of us is leaving this house and we both know it won’t be me.”

 

At that, Medusa tipped her head back and laughed, full throated. “You? Still coughing up grave dirt? That’s adorable.” She was still chuckling when she looked Marie square in the eye. “There’s no place for you, now. Haven’t you heard? You’ve been replaced.”

 

“I know what you did. I know you took my baby,” Marie said, her voice cracking clean in half, betraying her hard exterior.

 

Medusa’s face was clean, free of guilt, free of shame. If anything, she seemed. . .amused. “What would you have done with a baby, anyway? Wasted it, probably. Locked it behind pretty walls and squandered the talent. The child of an assassin and a doctor? Come now, Marie. Think of the  _ possibilities.” _ __  
_  
_ “I-  __ no!  What have you-”

 

The dagger that came for her actually caught her against the cheek. A warning blow. A cat playing with its food. Medusa smiled wide. “You don’t need to worry about it, do you? I’ll have to finish the job, this time. I knew when I shot you it would keep you long enough to induce labor. Didn’t think you’d survive it, though. You’re a persistent little shit, huh?”   
  
Marie’s jaw settled, all steel and sorrow, her teeth gritting, all her muscles on edge. Her single eye scoped out the room, suddenly backing away so she could see it all. Daggers. Under the table. Maybe in the cabinets? Medusa’s hand disappeared beneath the counter and Marie got low, rolling and throwing all her weight behind her sledgehammer, slamming it, heavy and cruel, against the little kitchen island, startling Medusa and shattering the wood. The dagger clattered to the corner as Medusa fell back, but Marie didn’t let up, lifting the hammer and throwing it down against the other woman’s head- at least, where it was a moment ago if she didn’t dodge to the side. 

 

“You forget,  _ Medusa _ ,” Marie spat, “Just who you’re dealing with!” 

 

Medusa scrambled, almost undignified as Marie finally managed to throw the hammer against her stomach, winding her and kicking her back almost all the way across the kitchen. 

  
“Even when we were kids, you underestimated me,” she said, finally managing to land a solid blow to Medusa’s wrist, crushing it in a sickening thump, “and you thought I would never be able to hurt you!”

 

Medusa hissed, kicking out, suddenly cornered, trapped, weaponless. But Marie knew not to stop, knew not to feel the mercy in her heart that threatened its way in, still just kicking, shoving backward, knowing she had to break her. 

 

“Marie-”

 

“No! You took my baby! You killed my husband! You destroyed everything!” she yelled, realizing a moment to late that she had cornered Medusa against where the dagger had fallen, a grave mistake, a fatal one, a-

 

“Melissa, what’s going on?” 

 

Time stopped. Marie’s breath froze in her body, her grip slackening. In the mere seconds she had, she turned to look at who said that, the voice, that  _ voice _ , that had whispered the gentlest uttering of her name, her true, real name. That voice that had soothed her, that had understood her. That voice she still dreamed of, sometimes, and ached everywhere for. Frank.  _ Frank. Her  _ Frank. Her-

 

And the dagger went, went, aimed at-

 

Aimed at-

 

Aimed at him. Marie shrieked, lunging forward, catching the blade in her arm and screamed when it did, crumpling down to the floor. 

 

“Medusa!” she howled, rolling away away away, trying to find a way to still hold on to her sledgehammer without giving up the knife. 

 

“Frank, how  _ good  _ of you to join us. Tell me, did the kid get to bed, yet?” Medusa purred, sweet as honey turned to a viper’s hiss at the end. 

 

“Get out!” Marie yelled. “Run!” She threw the hammer out with one hand, all her muscles protesting as she managed to trip Medusa, rearing up, a snake about to strike. She didn’t know if he ran. She didn’t know if he knew that this was who she was, and the shame that seeped through her at that thought, that she had tried, so desperately, to hide this ugliness of herself from him, and now, the only way to save him was to expose it, but she couldn’t wait, couldn’t hesitate.

 

It was always an instant. Always. All the kills she’d ever managed had always happened in a blink and felt like years. Getting on top of Medusa, managing to fight through the pain as blood seeped from the wound in her arm and down her cheek to grip the sledgehammer, putting all her force down, down, down, smashing bone and brain, demolishing her skull, her friend, her  _ friend,  _ who took her baby and her husband and her future. Marie didn’t know she was sobbing until after it was all over, an eternity, and Medusa’s face- Melissa- suddenly so smug. Like she still got what she wanted, even in death. Like she had ruined everything. Everything. 

 

Marie looked down at the wrecked face of what once was the closest person to her, and dropped her sledgehammer beside her, coated in blood, both of theirs, her hands red red red, and brought them to her cheeks, covered her eye, and wept.

 

Because a friend in this world was the most important thing.   
  
And she had killed her. 

* * *

 

She didn’t think she would mourn. Not like this. Not for so long. She didn’t even know how long, but when she looked up, looked at the doorway, he was there. An apparition. A dream she had dreamt so many times. 

 

And she was dirty. She felt unclean.

  
“Frank-“ Marie breathed, her hands shaking, but he didn’t make a move toward her. She didn’t blame him, of course. She was covered in blood. And the last time he’d seen her, she was dead, shot in the chest by someone in a black mask, and he’d been tied up, tied to the altar, until the police showed up. He had always thought of her as sweet, kind, warm. She had never allowed him to know the kind of world she grew up in, the kind of atrocities she’d committed. She had shed her skin, emerged, for him, for a future, for a life. 

 

A life.

 

Her belly ached, a phantom.

 

“The baby-“

 

“-Is fine,” Stein said, and the relief bloomed on her face, as sudden as morphine. Her baby. Her  _ baby.  _

 

“Where- where is-“ 

 

Frank Stein shook his head, and she fell silent, suddenly bringing her guard up. She loved Frank. Loved him. But she couldn’t know-

 

She remembered her wedding day. Remembered how he’d laughed, always so easy going around her. She remembered the ring that she no longer wore. That Medusa didn’t wear, either. Maybe they’d taken it off of her, together. Maybe he. . .maybe after  _ they _ shot her, Medusa untied him and they threw her ring into the sand, sunk it into a place no one would remember. Maybe they stole her baby then and there. He was a doctor, after all, he would have known how. 

 

Marie could feel her muscles tighten, preparing for a fight. She was exhausted, she was burning, but she would do anything- fuck,  _ anything _ , for her baby. She would scrape her bones to silt, walk the desert- she loved him but she had already killed so much love in her life-

 

“Marie,” Stein said, and her entire body shuddered, trying to cut her feelings off to him, trying to sever that which had been so easily repaired when she saw him, when she knew he was  _ alive. _ __  
__  
“Fuck, Marie, I thought you were-“ he started, and she saw as he closed his eyes that his hands were shaking, too. Marie breathed in hard, instinctively standing up, wobbling, taking a step toward him the way she always did to comfort him, to place her hand on his, to kiss him, perhaps, but her knees gave out, and she felt herself sinking back to the ground.

 

“Oh-“ she gasped, not used to her body betraying her, and she closed her only remaining eye, preparing to fall, but Stein was beside her in just a moment, grasping her under the arms, and she could have been ashamed, the once great Copperhead, the once strong and powerful, the once deadly, turning to goop in his hold once more. Her fall broken, her grasp on the hammer eased until it dissolved, and she clutched at him weakly, a sob on her tongue.

 

The truth was, it was always here, beside him, in his embrace, that she softened. He believed her to be softness and sugar, warmth personified, sunshine- she wanted so desperately to be those things for him, without pretense or pretend. But she had always been arrowed out elbows. Even as a child, she was scrappy. But here- here she was just Marie. She burrowed against his chest, her cheek flattening to his shirt, tear-staining it.

 

“I-“ she hiccupped, but he put his hand to the back of her head. What was once a beautiful, shimmering blonde had turned a sticky strawberry in some places, but he soothed her nonetheless.

 

“Admittedly,” Stein began, his palm settling on the crown of her head, “this is much different from the last time I saw you.”

 

She laughed, but it was watery, and she weakly pushed at his shoulder. She felt his one arm hoist her up against him, and she couldn’t let go. Her gut churned and her wounds burned with a fierceness. But she was just too happy to finally,  _ oh god, _ finally, be beside him again.

 

When Stein spoke again, it was softer, and guarded. “Why didn’t you tell me? That this was who you were?”

 

She froze, inhaling sharply before she closed her eye. “I- I suppose I’m just. . .a bad person,” she said, her smile wobbling on her face, and Stein gently pulled away, looking at her, taking it all in. Her eye, the eviscerated one, had once been his favorite feature of hers. She remembered how he would run the pads of his thumbs over her closed eyelids before he kissed her forehead. Now, it was a mass of red, a clot of demolished tissue. 

 

“No,” he said simply, as though it truly was so easy to denounce. “You’re the best person I know.”

 

Her fists tightened against his shirt. “But-“

 

“You’re my favorite person,” he continued. “Still.”

 

“Still? You just watched me-”

 

Stein turned his gaze away from Medusa’s broken body, and shook his head. “Marie,” he urged, and she looked up at him, terrified, swallowed whole by the intensity of it all, unwilling to carry it anymore. “Still.”

 

“But I. . .I. . .”

 

“I always knew.”

 

“. . .what?”

 

“I knew. I always knew. I didn’t care.”

 

“How could you. . .?”

 

“Know? Spirit and I were roommates in college. And I still married you.”

 

“No,” she said, the only think she could make her mouth say at that moment. 

 

“What?” he asked, confused.

 

“You didn’t. We aren’t. . .but I. . .I always wanted. . .and the baby. . .the  _ baby-”  _ Marie said, suddenly laughing, suddenly feeling weightless, unable to handle that all the pressure had fallen away from her, melted. Medusa hadn’t destroyed anything. Marie had won. She had  _ won.  _ Frank looked at her until she was done, and she was covered in tears, and blood, her white shirt stained irreparably, her blond hair stringy and sticky. “You’re both alive,” she breathed, bringing one of her hands to her now flat belly. “You’re both  _ alive. _ ”

 

He nodded, quietly stroking her hair before his hand dropped to settle upon her own, and she looked at him, Medusa behind her, the hammer behind her, and only Frank in front. 

 

“I want to. . .I want to see my baby,” she said.

 

Frank cracked a smile, gently squeezing her hand atop her stomach as they stood in the doorway. “Ready?” he asked, and she felt a breeze, clean and crisp and sinless as she nodded and looked out to the house and the man and the future ahead of her. 

 

“Always.”

 

 _._  
_._  
_._  
_"Oh baby, I'm just human, don't you know I have faults like anyone?_  
_Sometimes I find myself alone regretting some little foolish thing, some simple thing that I've done._  
_Cause I'm just a soul whose intentions are good_  
_Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."  
_~Nina Simone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINISHED!! IT'S FINISHED!!!!
> 
> Gotta thank my beta, BlinkFl0yd, one of my artists, for making this way better in the beginning than it was at first, and InnocentCinnamonBun, my other artist, who also wrote their own incredible resbang! Check them both out!!!


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